Since akeley's point seemed to mistify some of you on the previous page, let me point out the first paragraph, which spells it out clearly enough (emphasis added):

akeley wrote:

I`m just an occasional passerby here, but somehow every time I lurk about there seems to be a similar "discussion" floating about. Or better yet, a locked post like that Silent Service one. hey cool an all - but what bugs me is the sanctimonious vibe that seems to accompany these things. Sure, most boards have some sort of anti-aware/rom/piracy/salt`n pepper policy, but usually it`s enforced without assorted sneering.

There (you're welcome). The rest of it may be a ranting wall of text, but he's not claiming that piracy is "justified" or legal, nor is he disagreeing with the forum's no-warez policy. He's only making the anecdotal points that illegal distribution has (1) actually helped preserve software, and (2) played a part in sustaining a target audience for emulation - thus expanding the potential customer base of present-day legal distributors like GOG. It's illegal, it's disallowed, but it isn't an absolute "evil" to get all preachy about.

Question is, whether this "sanctimonious vibe" is real or imagined. DOSBox and its forums need to stay in the clear legally, and can't be expected to support crappy releases that are often broken or incomplete. So we can't support warez here, and the continuing influx of n00bs going "I torrented this and it doesn't work, help me fix it" can get annoying. But to me that's the extent of it.

Trixter's original usage of "abandonware" was mentioned, and yeah, he spelled out quite explicitly that it's illegal, but that personally he supported old games being preserved and experienced. In spirit I'm with that, and with similar statements made by Fringer (HOTUD founder) and Benj Edwards (of VC&G and Technologizer). There's no question that abandonware is illegal and can't be justified on that basis, but no "sanctimonious vibe" either.

VileRancour wrote:

Since akeley's point seemed to mistify some of you on the previous page, let me point out the first paragraph, which spells it o […]
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Since akeley's point seemed to mistify some of you on the previous page, let me point out the first paragraph, which spells it out clearly enough (emphasis added):

akeley wrote:

I`m just an occasional passerby here, but somehow every time I lurk about there seems to be a similar "discussion" floating about. Or better yet, a locked post like that Silent Service one. hey cool an all - but what bugs me is the sanctimonious vibe that seems to accompany these things. Sure, most boards have some sort of anti-aware/rom/piracy/salt`n pepper policy, but usually it`s enforced without assorted sneering.

There (you're welcome). The rest of it may be a ranting wall of text, but he's not claiming that piracy is "justified" or legal, nor is he disagreeing with the forum's no-warez policy. He's only making the anecdotal points that illegal distribution has (1) actually helped preserve software, and (2) played a part in sustaining a target audience for emulation - thus expanding the potential customer base of present-day legal distributors like GOG. It's illegal, it's disallowed, but it isn't an absolute "evil" to get all preachy about.

Question is, whether this "sanctimonious vibe" is real or imagined. DOSBox and its forums need to stay in the clear legally, and can't be expected to support crappy releases that are often broken or incomplete. So we can't support warez here, and the continuing influx of n00bs going "I torrented this and it doesn't work, help me fix it" can get annoying. But to me that's the extent of it.

Trixter's original usage of "abandonware" was mentioned, and yeah, he spelled out quite explicitly that it's illegal, but that personally he supported old games being preserved and experienced. In spirit I'm with that, and with similar statements made by Fringer (HOTUD founder) and Benj Edwards (of VC&G and Technologizer). There's no question that abandonware is illegal and can't be justified on that basis, but no "sanctimonious vibe" either.

But who gets to decide whether an old piece of software should be preserved or not? If the owner of a piece of software WANTS his work to die with him, shouldn't that be his right? What if the owner leaves his work to his heirs and specifies in his will that it is NEVER to be distributed again and that they are to pursue legal action against anyone who makes copies of it available? Isn't he entitled to do that? Who are you or anyone else who does not own the copyright to decide that this or that piece of software NEEDS to be saved from disappearing forever in violation of the copyright holders wishes?

Jorpho wrote:

Except now GOG is selling that one. If the copyright had expired, it would be unlikely that anyone would be interested in buyin […]
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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Take a look at Ultima 6, for example. Electronic Arts no longer sells them Electronic Arts no longer profit from them.

Except now GOG is selling that one. If the copyright had expired, it would be unlikely that anyone would be interested in buying it from GOG. (Of course, GOG does provide a handy installer and an assurance that the package is well put together, but it's debatable if that would be worth six bucks if the game was legally available for free.)

As far as Amiga software is concerned, if copyrights there had expired long ago, it would deny Cloanto its little economic niche.

Technology is truly changing all the time. Before DOSBox, an operation like GOG would have been nearly unthinkable as a business. Who knows what might come next?

Why should it put GOG out of business? Book publishers like Random House and Penguin Publishing can still profit from public domain works like Anna Karenina, despite the free downloadable version exists.

sliderider wrote:

But who gets to decide whether an old piece of software should be preserved or not? If the owner of a piece of software WANTS his work to die with him, shouldn't that be his right?

If someone refuses to wear seat belt and chooses to die or badly injured in a car accident, shouldn't that be his right? Still, in certain countries, there is law that fines you for not wearing seat belt.

While law should protect individual rights, I believe such protection is not without limit. I think the purpose of law should be to create a better society, and I doubt we would live in better society if Leonardo DaVinci decided Monalisa should die with him instead of being available to public like we have today. 😀

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

sliderider wrote:

But who gets to decide whether an old piece of software should be preserved or not? If the owner of a piece of software WANTS his work to die with him, shouldn't that be his right?

If someone refuses to wear seat belt and chooses to die or badly injured in a car accident, shouldn't that be his right? Still, in certain countries, there is law that fines you for not wearing seat belt.

While law should protect individual rights, I believe such protection is not without limit. I think the purpose of law should be to create a better society, and I doubt we would live in better society if Leonardo DaVinci decided Monalisa should die with him instead of being available to public like we have today. 😀

There is no law that says software MUST be preserved.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Why should it put GOG out of business? Book publishers like Random House and Penguin Publishing can still profit from public domain works like Anna Karenina, despite the free downloadable version exists.

The experience of a printed book, for now, differs substantially from what can be offered by an e-book. That, too, may change.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

While law should protect individual rights, I believe such protection is not without limit. I think the purpose of law should be to create a better society, and I doubt we would live in better society if Leonardo DaVinci decided Monalisa should die with him instead of being available to public like we have today. 😀

While I agree that it is truly unfortunate if an author decides some creation into which he poured dozens or hundreds of hours is so devoid of value that it should be expunged from the Earth, it is also quite unsettling to deny an author any choice in what happens to his work the moment it becomes publicly accessible.

hi

i don't think it's correct to confuse an author, creator, painter or whatever with the person or thing that either commissioned, contracted or bought the rights to a product.

the original author can be admired for their efforts and work but ownership when published or just archived in a gallery is transferred. they no longer have a say in it's future.

in the case of publishers they get no glory as such from the product, they are only in it for profit. this is why copyrights are continually extended and not expired. the publisher has no emotional tie with the product nor prestige in it's creation, it's simply about making money.

bye

Dominus wrote:

Akeley, what is the point you try to make? Writing a big pile of words doesn't help any cause if they don't make sense...

To you and anybody else that could be genuinely interested and was mystified by my "wall of text" please see VileRancour`s post - he deciphers my ramblings quite well.
Nb: I hail from pre-tl;dr era - when few paragraphs of text wasn`t anything to run away from. If it makes sense is another issue, but there`s a method in my madness and also I see it more of a way you approach such contentious post - keeping an open mind helps. Besides it wasn`t really my intention to participate in a "discussion" - as someone stated earlier it`s largerly impossible. Sides are taken, lines drawn, each to its own etc - I made this post more for a few like - minded lurkers or people who still have the ability to see both sides of the issue.
The fact it was rant-like was caused by the overall tone of this board itself - again, see VileRancour`s post.

Few individual points (sorry, can`t multi-quote)
@Jorpho
"it would be very bad indeed if DOSBox were to suddenly come under legal scrutiny as a tool for using illegally copied software"

Sure thing - like I said I have nothing against the overall policy. But it has nothing to do with applying self-righteous tone and perhaps it would be wiser to either assume "don`t ask " policy - or state somewhere clearly that you don`t want pirate scum here. Otherwise it leads to such ridiculous things like some dude posting pics of his Ultima 7 disks to "prove" he`s legit.
But in the -very highly unlikely - case of Dosbox having legal troubles because of some post here - I think it would be a great excuse for the great irony explosion: wasn`t there a time when Da Big Boys were using the emulator "illegaly"? Steam, id, perhaps? (On other note: did GOG/others ever contributed anything cash-like towards developers instead of nebulous "thanks" ?)

"The arrival of GOG largely coincided with the rise of DOSBox, and before DOSBox, "emulation" in general was a rather different thing"

You lost me there (perhaps because I`ve lost you first in my post). HOTU had links to Dosbox in the early noughties and that`s what everybody was using. "The rise"? You mean the resurgence of "retro" - which was one of the main points of my post?

"I can think of at least one site that has a whacking great GOG banner plastered all over it that still gleefully offers downloads for games that GOG is selling. I can think of another site that actually held a poll as to whether they should allow people to freely download GOG's DRM-free packages, with the results coming up 75% in favor."

That`s two sites. Prior to my post I looked - quite hard - and didn`t find any. These things tend to change quite fast. But even if you`re right, it`s still a small percentage - fact remains that majority of abandonware sites now helps to generate income for GOG.
And even if so what? They`re not gonna bring GOG down - please - and I said earlier - not everybody has a credit card/PayPal. But one day they might. Conversion y`see.

@sliderider
"You use the typical defense of all pirates and other thieves,[...] Poverty never justifies theft."

Here we have a typical example of "ahh cute, let`s just skim/ff/cherry pick the post and bang our own drum" school of replying.

If you actually read my post you`d eventually get to the "My favourite actually is the " ...they need to justify..." gambit. No sir, hardly. Couldn`t care less - if somebody fancies calling me a thief (nevermind a reformed one), he`s free to do so - matter of opinion. In this rotten world of ours it`s hardly comparable anyway". But hey - "wall of text/makes no sense" right? ;)

@F2bnp
"I think he's somewhat confused"

Neat :) However, I`d (predictably) disagree - pointing out that I see slight confusion in your own assumption that HOTU was a "noble" site while the rest a horde of savage uploaders. Sure - there were a few links to CD Access. Alongside one of the largest download databases ever. Very few games existed only as entries, nobody cared back then apart from few legal letter-writers. Also there was no legal distribution whatsoever - so how could they "hurt" anyone?
I pointed out above that most current-day abandonware sites live in symbiotic existence with GOG. Who else are they hurting? The most minted in this industry - multi-billion pubcos? With their more and more ridiculous schemes to squeeze every last cent out of gaming masses? Yeah, few folk downloading some old game sure will dent their quarterly profit...

@leileilol
I see your top form continues, good sir: Abandonware=warez -priceless. Soemthing something, something - ahh, here I finally get to say "entitlement" again!
Facepalm - indeed :)

Ok folks, no worries, that`s the last wall-of-textual-confusion from me. Have no intention of trolling this board - and we all know we`ll never agree or even "discuss" these things, though response here was less condescending/sneery than I expected (with few notable exceptions :) so respect for that. Speaking of which I also have enormous amounts of it for DOSBOX/D Fend Reloaded devs.

As for the nasty pirates, I rather pay attention/get exercised by the world-collapsing shenanigans of Goldman Sachs ilk than some really harmless lil`sites.

akeley wrote:

@leileilol
I see your top form continues, good sir: Abandonware=warez -priceless. Soemthing something, something - ahh, here I finally get to say "entitlement" again!
Facepalm - indeed 😀

But it is
Don't try to tell me that it isn't. It really does boil down to spoiled entitlement to old software through the internet. Even worse it makes testing DOSBox worse with reports from broken non-original copies.

Ironically the more truly abandoned and rarer software are the obscure shareware/freeware titles that never had a pinch of market awareness, rather than all these slightly underselling commercial games somehow getting the determined-by-some-rather-young-admin-of-a-content-management-system "abandonware status"... like Blood. I wonder why?
And then the marking of said commercial game as "abandonware" will lead into the spread of misinformation that it's 'okay' to warez up this old game, which pisses me off

In the '90s we had another name for this. It's oldwarez.

akeley wrote:

To you and anybody else that could be genuinely interested and was mystified by my "wall of text" please see VileRancour`s post - he deciphers my ramblings quite well.
Nb: I hail from pre-tl;dr era - when few paragraphs of text wasn`t anything to run away from.

If your "ramblings" need to be "deciphered", kindly do not blame others for a lack of "genuine interest", sir.

or state somewhere clearly that you don`t want pirate scum here.

Didn't you just finish saying that people don't bother reading things even if they are stated somewhere clearly?

wasn`t there a time when Da Big Boys were using the emulator "illegaly"?

Why would anyone consider it illegal for someone to distribute DOSBox (properly attributed, of course) with their own intellectual property?

HOTU had links to Dosbox in the early noughties and that`s what everybody was using.

Unless you are exaggerating the meaning of "early", I can state with almost complete certainty that this is false.

fact remains that majority of abandonware sites now helps to generate income for GOG.

And this is just bullshit. (I'm sure you can justify it by coming up with some horribly contorted definitions of "majority", "abandonware sites", and "generate income", of course.)

sliderider wrote:

But who gets to decide whether an old piece of software should be preserved or not? If the owner of a piece of software WANTS his work to die with him, shouldn't that be his right? What if the owner leaves his work to his heirs and specifies in his will that it is NEVER to be distributed again and that they are to pursue legal action against anyone who makes copies of it available? Isn't he entitled to do that? Who are you or anyone else who does not own the copyright to decide that this or that piece of software NEEDS to be saved from disappearing forever in violation of the copyright holders wishes?

I'm not talking about "deciding" the fate of this or that particular piece of software. I was putting forward my general stance on what is ultimately preferrable. Legally, of course copyright holders are entitled to destroy, bury and eliminate whatever they own, but that does little to change my own opinion of such acts when they ultimately benefit no-one. Cases of explicit personal wishes aren't even the problem: current (and worse, proposed future) copyright laws and practices - combined with the quick obsolescence of digital media - pretty much ensure that a given work will be destroyed, simply as a consequence of not doing anything at all.

the result is a net loss of data/knowledge - "entitlement" has little to do with it, and looking at the big picture, the example of video games barely even counts. I for one feel better off for the fact that, for most of history, mankind's accumulated knowledge and works WEREN'T protected by the equivalents of DMCA/SOPA/etc, and WEREN'T stored on media with a shelf life of 3 decades (using proprietary encodings and interface standards that die off even faster). You may be A-OK with the consequences of that, and that's fine; but you won't convince me that it's optimal in any way.

leileilol wrote:

Abandonware used to mean games lost to humanity, and that transmutated as eternal september came and had more entitlement for older games.

Trixter would facepalm at what his established term has turned to as a new 'good faith' excuse for warez.

*facepalm* 😉

To be 100% accurate, I didn't coin the term "Abandonware". That term was coined by Peter Ringering, who I met in 1996 trying to organize a loose collection of sites that carried oldwarez into a webring (remember those?). "Abandonware" was his way of justifying that what all of us were doing was somehow legal, when of course it wasn't. I was always in favor of calling the whole thing "oldwarez", which I did for many years. (I now call it "preservation" and I'm completely honest and serious when I use that term.)

You can thank Abandonware for MobyGames. If my abandonware site hadn't been the very first ever taken down by the (then) IDSA, I wouldn't have been motivated to create MobyGames.

These days I spend my archival efforts dumping protected DOS and bootable 5.25" floppies by a variety of means, and since 1997 I've worked with Hargle on the Total DOS Collection (TDC) archive (and continue to do so) which I'm sure many of you are familiar with.

I have long said that if a software program goes unpublished for 5 years, that it should automatically go into the public domain, therefore legalizing "abandonware". I know it will never happen, but it sure as hell would help to resolve a lot of legal headaches for *ahem* software archivists and historians. 🤣

Until then though, well... I will say that GoG.com is awesome and beats the crap out of downloading dodgy cracked copies of games that were originally released by Razor 1911 or whatever in the 90s. 😁

I agree and I have even purchased some GOG titles that I already own legit full copies of (ie. Arcanum) just because 1. I wanted to support GOG and 2. I find the $5 or whatever I paid a good price for the service of scanning the 150-page manual for me.